I have three words for when it comes to this whacked-out screenplay: The Squirrel Scene. Nothing more needs to be said.

Genre: Comedy/Satire
Premise: (from Black List) A satirically dark comedy about a homicidal foreclosure victim kidnapping a real estate agent and planning to kill her in the housing development where she finagled money from customers like him.
About: This script finished tied at the bottom of the 2011 Black List with 6 votes. Del Tredici is repped by WME and managed by Mosaic. He’s written exclusively in TV up to this point, penning episodes of 30 Rock and Bored To Death (among others).
Writer: Luke Del Tredici
Details: 104 pages – 8/21/10 Fifth Draft (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

Today’s script is one I’d never heard of before. And why would I have? It doesn’t even have a proper title. Which actually makes sense because when you read it, you realize it doesn’t have a proper anything. This script is about as improper as it gets. Del Tredici is clearly an insane person. I imagine him stalking Liz Lemon in his dreams with a cheese grater. Read this script and you’ll realize that’s not as weird a statement as you think it is.

But here’s the catch. Insanity can be a good thing for writers. With the right amount of focus, insanity can lead to genius! Edgar Allan Poe was insane right? And he came up with some pretty cool stuff. I don’t know if I’m ready to put Del Tredici in the same league as Poe just yet, but I can tell you this: You will not forget this script after you read it. I promise you that.

We’re in Harding, Arizona, June 2007. Harding is one of those upscale communities that investors just decided to build. It didn’t get there after years of growth. They took the Field Of Dreams mentality: “If we build a bunch of McMansions, they will come.” Will they Ray? Will they?

Cassie Francis is a real estate agent in Harding. She’s riding the wave of this booming industry, even owning one of these McMansions herself! Everything’s going swimmingly. That is until the housing market implodes.

Cut to two years later and the community is a ghost town. Nine out of every ten houses have been deserted. Cassie is one of the few remaining stragglers and it doesn’t look like she’ll be able to hold on much longer. She hasn’t sold a house in six months and her boss is coming up with more reasons to fire her than keep her. That’ll end up being the least of her worries though, since when she comes into work, she inadvertently witnesses an adjustable-rate mortgage victim sort of accidentally kill the big cheese.

This once normal but now crazed home-owner, Sonny, has no choice but to do something about the lone witness, so he kidnaps Cassie and brings her back to his home, which happens to be in the same community she lives in.

At first things are light and fluffy. Sonny looks like he’s going to let Cassie go as long as she promises not to tell anybody what she saw. But then his ex-wife shows up, starts pushing his buttons, and he ends up killing her too! Now that Cassie’ been a witness to TWO murders, he realizes he has to get rid of her. In order to make sure nobody’s looking for Cassie though, he decides to go to her house and snatch up her teenage daughter as well.

While that’s going on, Cassie manages to escape, and while Sonny brings her daughter back, she’s able to call the police. The thing is, there’s only one cop in this hellhole. The rest had to be let go when all these rich folks who couldn’t pay their mortgages fled town.

Now Cassie and this one cop must try and find which house she was actually being held in – not an easy task since every single house looks exactly the same! Cassie eventually finds and rescues her daughter, but with a very determined Sonny on their trail, escape is anything but guaranteed.

This script is so damn weird. But weird in a deliriously awesome way!

It all starts with Sonny, who’s one of the most unpredictable villains you’ll ever meet. One second he’s cozy and comforting and telling our heroine that he’s going to let her go. The next he’s a psychotic serial killer having our poor protagonist and her daughter dig their own graves. This dude was like a giant suspense yo-yo, with no rhyme or reason to his actions. And boy did that make him terrifying.

But none of his actions compare to the best scene I’ve read in a script all year. I’m not going to spoil it because you have to read the scene yourself to believe it. I will refer to it only as…The Squirrel Scene. I have never been so terrified of squirrels in my life. This scene has made me reevaluate squirrels as animals. I’m thinking of calling the National Animal Control Center and seeing if there’s a way we can get rid of all squirrels on the planet just because of this scene. It’s such a great scene, in fact, that I think this movie is worth making JUST for this scene. And I realize how ridiculous that sounds but this scene is just so unexpected and so weird and so terrifying that I stand by it.

Outside of that, there’s a nice little statement going on about the housing crisis. While I didn’t personally feel the sting of that implosion, I know people who did. And I just remember how helpless and angry they felt – like they’d been duped and there was nobody out there willing to help them. I remember them having to jump through a million hoops just to get a minor extension and how oftentimes, even when they did everything right, they’d still get screwed. In that sense, Sonny embodies everybody’s frustration. And without getting too deep, there’s a strange part of you that understands him – that understands why he’s gone nutzos. And it’s that subtext that makes this screenplay more than just a silly exercise in weird comedic choices.

I only disliked two things about the script. The first is it felt a little clunky at times. The writing wasn’t as smooth as maybe it could’ve been. And the other was the ex-husband stuff. Cassie has this ex-husband who’s now dating a 24-year-old fluzie who’s quite possibly the dumbest girl in the world. He’s the only person she’s able to contact for help so he has to drive back to save her with his nagging girlfriend tagging along. It’s not a terrible subplot by any means but it just gets old quickly. We keep cutting back to the car, listening to the same argument over and over again (“Why are we doing this?”). I suppose it had potential but I’d rather have stayed back where all the action was.

In the end, I think you gotta admire Del Tredici for taking so many chances. When I read scripts like The Knoll or Selfless, I’m always bummed out by how predictable they are. The writers never take a single chance! They do everything exactly by the book. This script is the opposite. And it’s really original as a result. I challenge anybody to read this script and forget about it. It’s impossible. This one would get people talking if it ever became a movie. Let’s hope that that happens.

[ ] Wait for the rewrite
[ ] wasn’t for me
[xx] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: One of the easiest ways to write an original scene is to ask yourself, “What’s the last thing my audience expects this character to do right now?” Everybody knows what the character would *likely* do. We’ve seen enough movies to be able to predict that. So put your thinking cap on and ask what it is they’d *least likely* do. When Sonny kidnaps Cassie, bringing her to his house, we think we know what’s going to happen. He’s going to tie her up and threaten her and blah blah blah. But the writer asks that question, “What’s the last thing the audience expects Sonny to do right now?” Why: Give Cassie a tour of the house of course! So we get this awkward but intriguing scene where Sonny gives his kidnapped captor a tour of his place. Not only is it original, but it creates the added benefit of making our villain seem even scarier. If this guy is so delusional that he’s giving the girl he kidnapped a tour of his place, then how crazy can he be??

You guys asked for it.  After Saturday’s “Which Script Should I Read” post and yesterday’s script links to the Top 3 scripts post, I’ve decided to post three more runner-up links. You don’t have to read the whole scripts of course.  Just check out the first 10 pages and let me know if any of them make you want to read further.  I’m getting a few nudges here and there that Zombie Knights is pretty good.  So maybe check out that one first.  Enjoy…

Zombie Knights – Action/horror
A war-battered knight returns from the Crusades to find his homeland terrorized by victims of a lethal fever who rise from the dead, hungry for human flesh. Sir Thomas shepherds survivors to the Castle Bridgenorth, where he leads a war of attrition against an army of the undead – even as he battles his own demons.

Hail Mary – Action/Revenge
A reformed hitwoman must return to the world of bullets and bloodshed she left behind to take on the organization she helped build, in order to avenge the death of her younger sister.

This Is Me Leaving – Dark Comedy
After landing an innocent woman in the hospital, a suicidal twenty-something winds up on a state-wide road trip delivering unique gifts to relative strangers in order to make amends.

Top 3 below

A man undergoing past-life regression therapy must find out the identity of a nemesis who’s killed him in his past lives… before he’s murdered again in his present life.
******WINNER – “Breathwork”******* 

Script link: Breathwork

When a burgeoning composer hits his head he begins to hear his life’s soundtrack; a soundtrack that is prompting and pushing him back to his ex-fiancee. But will he follow the guidance of the music?

Three friends reunite before a wedding and take a road trip to achieve their childhood goal – finding the millions of lost E.T. Atari cartridges buried in the sands of Alamogordo, NM.
**3rd Place – “Holy Alamogordo”**
 
Script Link: Holy Alamogordo

Peter Pan mixed with Lord Of The Flies mixed with…zombies? Sounds like an interesting little screenplay. Let’s find out if guest reviewer Amy Suto liked it…

Since I’m tired of giving you guys vague updates about my book, the site re-launch, and Twit-Pitch, I’m putting together an official schedule (with real dates!) that I plan to post this weekend. I’m like the U.S. Government. I’m posting about a post that I’ll make later. Heh heh. In the meantime, I’m bringing back guest reviewer Amy Suto, (who reviewed Celeste and Jesse Forever a month ago) to take on some zombie madness. Or, errr…are they zombies? I’m confused. You know what, I’ll just let Amy clear it up.

The more I thought about it, with the way the logline contest went a few months ago, the more I wanted to minimize the chance of reading a bad script.  So I’m putting up links to the Top 3 scripts from Saturday’s “Which Should I Read” post and letting you guys take a look at them.  You don’t have to read the whole scripts of course.  Just check out the first 10 pages or so and let me know which script has the best shot at being good.  If this works out, we’ll do it more often!

A man undergoing past-life regression therapy must find out the identity of a nemesis who’s killed him in his past lives… before he’s murdered again in his present life.
******WINNER – “Breathwork”******* 

Script link: Breathwork

When a burgeoning composer hits his head he begins to hear his life’s soundtrack; a soundtrack that is prompting and pushing him back to his ex-fiancee. But will he follow the guidance of the music?

Three friends reunite before a wedding and take a road trip to achieve their childhood goal – finding the millions of lost E.T. Atari cartridges buried in the sands of Alamogordo, NM.
**3rd Place – “Holy Alamogordo”**
 
Script Link: Holy Alamogordo

Wait a minute. A 2011 Black List comedy that’s actually funny? Can it be? Or has Carson once again misjudged the definition of “comedy?”

Genre: Comedy
Premise: Taking place over one day, a group of couples deal with a myriad of issues while attending a wedding together.
About: This was originally sold as a pitch to CBS films in August of last year. The subsequent script finished at the bottom of the 2011 Black List with six votes.
Writer: Andrew Goldberg
Details: 104 pages, September 14, 2011 (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

I’m ready for the claws to come out. It’s another big comedy script which also happens to be a comedy script that Carson likes. And we all know how those go. Despite some of these scripts being loved by everybody in Hollywood, they seem to be hated by you guys! Which means you’re all wrong! But I do have a streak going with Winter’s Discontent here. Granted it’s a streak of one. But that’s better than the streak I usually have going, which is zero.

Here’s the thing with today’s script though – the idea behind it is pretty genius. An entire movie based around a wedding? I’m not sure that’s ever been done before in a comedy. We’ve seen plenty of movies leading up to weddings. But I’m not sure we’ve had a comedy that’s *just about* the day of the wedding itself. It’s one of those ideas that’s so simple, you wonder why you didn’t come up with it yourself.

Anyway, we start out with Tim and Beth, a married couple in their 30s. Tim is madly in love with his wife but his wife doesn’t seem nearly as enthusiastic. In fact, once at the wedding, when the bride and groom finally say, “I do,” Beth tells Tim, “I don’t,” informing him she’s filing for divorce. A baffled Tim will now spend the rest of the wedding trying to figure out where his marriage went wrong – and why his wife seems to be having so much fun with this mysterious guy he’s never seen before.

Roger and Kate are an interesting ex-couple. They used to go out until Kate found out Roger was having sex with half of America. She subsequently jumped ship and has spent the better part of a year trying to get over him. She’s finally succeeded, finding a guy she really likes, who she’s brought to the wedding. When Roger finds out Kate has officially moved on, he of course ditches his date and focuses exclusively on getting Kate back.

Danny is the class clown/best man. He’s the overweight jokester who’s great for a laugh but not very good with the ladies. He’s shown up here by himself – the way he always rolls – and plans on getting wasted and having a great time with the guys. But when he makes a connection with the wedding singer, a hottie named Larissa, he has to find out if she’s just being nice because this is a wedding or if she really likes him.

Ryan and Caroline have been together for three years and it’s just hit Caroline that he’s never going to propose. When’s the last time you want to go to a wedding? When you learn the guy you’re with never wants to get married. So as she sees all of this love swirling around her, she becomes more and more frustrated, and resolves to do something about it, to Ryan’s horror.

There are plenty of other wedding favorites, like the weirdo uncle who’s constantly saying inappropriate things and staring at young girls. There’s the girl who showed up without a date and has to deal with the all the questions about her ex-boyfriend. And there’s the 17-year-old who’s looking to get deflowered.

I don’t really know what to say about this script other than it’s really good! It’s sort of like “Can’t Hardly Wait” but in wedding form. I love the contained time frame idea. It makes the story so immediate. Everything needs to happen RIGHT NOW so you know all of these unresolved relationships need to get resolved TONIGHT. And that keeps each relationship moving along at a brisk clip. Whenever we cut to someone, they’re usually in the throes of an important moment – something you don’t always get when the time frame for the story is spread out over weeks or months.

And that’s really the key to making these movies work. When you don’t have an overriding concept – in other words, a main character with a goal (find the Ark, prove the one-armed man killed my wife, get to Paradise Falls), the focus shifts over to the unresolved relationships. These will be the engines that carry the story forward.

It’s so important that you understand this because a lot of beginners don’t realize without a big character goal, the story can go south quickly. But if you create a bunch of interesting characters who have big problems, then every time we cut back to them, there’s going to be something interesting going on. We want to know how that conflict is going to get resolved. And that’s another key word here – conflict. Because these relationships are unresolved, there’s always conflict. And conflict is the heart of drama and drama is the key to entertaining.

In other words, if all of these people are happy, you don’t have a movie. So when we cut back to Kate and Roger, we’re wondering, is he going to convince her to be with him again? Or with Tim – Is he going to get his wife back? Or with Caroline – Is she finally going to confront Ryan about their relationship? Or with Jeremy, the 17-year-old – Is he finally going to get laid?!

I’ve read versions of these stories where the writers have no unresolved issues to play with. They then try to fill that void with “funny” dialogue – observations about people at the wedding, or crass sex jokes. The scenes feel desperate, though, because they’re just filling time. When you’ve built real problems and issues that need to be resolved, you don’t need to worry about writing funny dialogue. The dialogue ends up writing itself.

And then there are just a bunch of nice touches to the story. I love this idea that we never see the bride and groom. We only see their backs or flashes of them – never their faces. For once, this is about the people *at* the wedding as opposed to the people getting married. That was really clever.

And easily my favorite character was the creepy uncle. We’ve all seen this guy at our own weddings and boy he is on fire here. He wears sunglasses the whole night so nobody can see his eyes. He laughs at the most inappropriate moments. He calls Danny “Rashad” for some reason and thinks he’s a cop. He’s hilarious.

And the relationships were all well-handled. I particularly liked the Danny and Larissa storyline. I loved how he was built up as the underdog – the loner. And when the wedding singer starts flirting with him, he (and the rest of the guys) have to figure out if she’s just doing it because that’s her job or if she’s doing it because she really likes him. We love Danny so much that we’re on the edge of our seats trying to find out the answer to this question ourselves!

You know, this script came REALLY close to getting an impressive, simply because I couldn’t find anything wrong with it. But much like “Can’t Hardly Wait,” there was just something indefinable missing – an x-factor to really take it over the top. Maybe it was the lack of that big unforgettable character (although the uncle comes close – he was more of a sideshow). Maybe it was the lack of surprises. I’m not sure. But there’s *something* missing here. Still, this was a really good script.

[ ] Wait for the rewrite
[ ] wasn’t for me
[xx] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: A goal and a ticking time bomb aren’t as important in stories which take place over a short period of time. The whole point of the character goal is to push the story along. But if the timeframe is contained (24 or 48 hours), the story tends to push itself along. You saw the same thing in movies like “Dazed and Confused” and “Can’t Hardly Wait,” which take place over one day. Likewise, a ticking time bomb doesn’t need to be a dominant part of the plot because the point of a ticking time bomb is to create urgency. If your story takes place inside of a day, the urgency is inherent. That’s not to say you *shouldn’t* use these tools in these situations. Just that they’re not as big of a factor in the story’s success.